Random stuff

Quicksilver attended the year's first play-date about 8 days ago. Yesterday she had a runny nose, a cough but no fever. She took a three hour nap and would have slept longer if her mother hadn't shown up.

I am firmly convinced that one of the reasons that senior citizens were monkey-hammered by Covid-19 is because most of us avoid contact with snot-nosed kids. We allow our subscription to the-virus-of-the-month club to lapse and our portfolio of antibody production tools becomes obsolete.

Viruses are like music. The coat of different strains of virus are all composed of the same musical notes but they are arranged in different patterns. New virus evolve with modest rearrangements of the coating; the part of the virus that is exposed to our bloodstream/immune system. If your body has been exposed to the new virus's most recent ancestors then your immune system will recognize most of the patterns and start churning out antibodies which will be successful in slowing down the new challenge.

My mental image is that of three defenders getting a piece of Billy Sims (a runner) and slowing him down enough so that the rest of the team can show up and help tackle him.

Wood-splitter

I bought a used wood-splitter yesterday.

The seller's father recently died and he had inherited his father's larger, newer wood-splitter. He didn't need two of them.

He started it up and split a gnarly piece of Black Locust log I brought for demonstration purposes. 

He sold it for a fair price. Fair for him. Fair for me. If taken care of, the unit still had 2/3 of its life ahead of it. It could last much longer if I (or whoever I bequeath it to upon my death) has access to a replacement motor.

He wanted 2/3 the price of new. Knowing that it would not wear out within my life-time, it presented no less value to me than a new one would.

It is now parked in the barn at the Upper/Hill Orchard site. 

Step counters

I have been wearing it more days than not. I am skeptical about its accuracy. I haven't done a test, but I think it logs steps when I am driving somewhere in the truck. It sees acceleration and the truck has a bumpy ride.

I didn't do much yesterday. I drove an hour, total, in the truck to pick up the wood-splitter. I walked 40 minutes with Mrs ERJ. I pushed a lawn mower for 20 minutes and the step counter credited me with 14k steps.

I will have to test the "truck hypothesis" one of these days. That is, write down the number of steps when I get into the truck and then after the drive to the Orchards.

Michigan is all centerfire for firearm deer-season

Michigan historically was divided into three zones. The most southern zone was "shotgun only" for deer season. Then exceptions were added. Black-powder and certain types of handguns were allowed.

Michigan was the last state in the nation to allow elevated deer blinds for firearm deer season.

Shotgun technology evolved. Rifled barrels, sabot ammo, "Rifle" platforms with stiff stocks and good triggers were chambered in shotgun cartridges.

Michigan then allowed certain rifle cartridges in the southern zone. They had to be within a certain size...not too long and not too short. They had to be more than 0.354" in diameter. They had to have straight walls. Those constraints limited the amount of smokeless powder they held and limited their power.

While all of this was happening, fewer young people became hunters. The average age is no about 64 years of age for deer hunters. The deer kept multiplying and now infectious diseases are an emerging concern.

2026 marks the first year that hunters in southern Michigan can use virtually any rifle cartridge to hunt deer.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.... I am sure this topic will be revisited on this blog.

Random meme

The meme may have mutated in the time between when I stole it from Midwest Chick and when I posted it here. IDK.

I watch the WOKE movement do exactly what the commentor suggests. They keep changing the location of the "Most Oppressed" sign.